


Enough Rope

by featherpoet



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Teenage Azula, Teenage Zuko, Young Azula, Young Zuko, Zuko is doing his best, but he's coming up a bit short
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-04
Updated: 2019-12-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 02:01:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21669616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/featherpoet/pseuds/featherpoet
Summary: (Takes place circa early Book 3)Zuko has returned from exile, but things in the heart of the Fire Nation aren’t what he expected. He finds himself grappling with painful memories, navigating a tense relationship with reality, and coping badly with the barrage of surprises that Azula keeps throwing at him.
Relationships: Azula & Zuko (Avatar)
Kudos: 23





	Enough Rope

When Zuko awoke, his hands were already clenched into fists at his side. An acute pain pulsed behind his closed eyes like a pair of butterfly swords attempting to extricate themselves from the confines of his skull. Zuko grimaced and forced his eyes open, and the swords attacked with sudden ferocity. “Ugh,” he muttered, vision spotted with painful spots and flares.

Zuko sat up stiffly, discovering a dozen or so new hurts in the process. Everything hurt these days. _Bath._ The thought was a staccato accent in a wash of irritation. _Right… ugh._ Zuko shook his head. It was the wrong decision. His frown deepened. _Come on, let’s go. Get it together._

Zuko would have loved to sleepwalk his way to the baths, but a few moments of attempting to dress were so excruciating that he was fully awake – and thoroughly furious – by the time he left the room. He barked orders aimlessly at the scurrying staff and servants as he passed, although he forgot the demands he made almost immediately. Even this brought little relief; his shoulders were still locked up, the swords were still cutting thin ribbons out of his eyes, and an occasional nauseous clench swelled up in the depths of his torso after each of those interactions. _Food._ Urgent, this time. _Fuck… no. Bath first, then food._ Zuko pressed his fingers into his right temple, sighing for the hundredth time that morning.

A short, covered pathway connected the bathhouse to the royal quarters. The pathway was flanked by two unsightly stone braziers, which Zuko grimaced at. Something about them was just off-putting. They had been hauled in a few months before, during the brief cold snap that had brought snow to the palace for the first time in over a decade.

Snow. Zuko could practically see it all around him, layered over the tepid spring morning like a veil. He slowed to a stop and leaned slightly to the left. It was just beyond that wall that he and Azula had built snow soldiers during the last snowfall. She was so tiny, and her laugh was brighter then. They had giggled heartily over their creations and took to chasing each other in circles around the bathhouse, acting out the roles of Fire Prince Ozai, Commander Supreme, and Master Gugu. The memory was so vivid, it was as if Zuko were watching the children stumbling past him, as if he could hear their laughter waxing and waning as they lapped. He stepped unconsciously out of the way of his breathless, four-year-old self – then, he finally remembered the decade-old jolt ahead. Zuko had a fraction of an instant for a cocktail of empathy, anxiety, and a strange, dissociated sense of loss to course through his system before he heard the devastated cries from around the building. Zuko stepped off the path to investigate, but he already knew how this story ended. His beloved Commander Supreme had been washed away in a slough of discarded bathwater. He had unknowingly constructed his idol beneath a drainpipe that had been obscured by snow.

“Zuzu?” Azula’s voice was behind him. The standing and kneeling Zukos looked over at the same time as she rounded the corner. The younger Zuko’s lip trembled for a heartbreaking instant, then he started to cry. Azula stumbled over on her tiny legs. She looked between Zuko, the small hill of steaming snow before him, and her own still very intact Master Gugu. The boy was crying in earnest as the snow continued to evaporate. The older prince watched Azula resolutely step over to Master Gugu and knock her over in a great, double-handed sweep. The boy gasped mid-sob, then hiccupped in surprise. Everything was still for a moment. Azula giggled, then they both erupted into laughter. Zuko held his sister gratefully while they laughed, tears still streaming down his puffy red cheeks.

“Zuzu!”

Zuko blinked, and the snowy vision disappeared. He felt a presence behind him, then wiped discretely at his eyes. “Y-yes?”

“What in the world are you doing?” Azula’s voice was sharp and lilting. “You’re wearing your slippers in the dirt!”

Zuko looked down. He was, in fact, wearing a very muddy pair of room slippers. He looked up wordlessly at his sister, unable to voice an explanation in the face of her cocked eyebrow and wry smirk.

She rolled her eyes. “As expected of my older brother,” she cooed. “Well, I do hope you wake up soon. For your sake, of course.”

“…Huh?” _Ugh, really, man?_ Azula smirked again at his feeble response. Her hauteur rose proportionately with her eyebrows.

“I’m sure that you, the esteemed Crown Prince, didn’t forget about Father’s important council meeting today.” Zuko felt his stomach bottom out, and he surged forward slightly as if he overbalanced. _Fuck!!_ “Surely you already bathed and just… disheveled yourself again.” Azula waved her hand sarcastically at him, then ran a finger through her now obviously wet hair. _Fuuuuuck!!_

“Uh, y-yeah,” Zuko muttered. _Fuck!!!_ “I forgot…” Azula’s eyebrow glinted upwards. “…my ceremonial clothes. And I was… looking for a servant to fetch them. Yeah.”

“Of course, Zuzu.” Azula was grinning ear-to-ear, but her voice was smooth as silk. “Shall I fetch someone for you? I could have them meet you in the bathhouse – so you can change, of course.”

 _Fuck you, Azula._ “Thanks, that would be great.” _Fuck you._

“I’ll tell them to make haste,” she said. “It would be _such_ a pity to see someone punished for delaying the Crown Prince to his meeting.” Her voice lilted mockingly through his title, and her eyes were steel knives below her long lashes. Azula turned on her heels and glided away before Zuko could think of something to say.

 _Yeah, I bet you’d hate that._ Distant memories of his own interactions with the staff that morning began to creep into the light, and a knot started to form in his roiling gut. _Ugh, I need food… Fuck! The bath!_ Zuko rushed into the bathhouse, kicking his soiled slippers off on the way in without bothering to shelve them properly.

Inside, there was barely a moment to spare. This irritated Zuko even further, since soaking in the hot water was no longer an option. Hoping to supercharge the effects, he blasted a fireball into the bath and the room steamed with a sustained hiss.

“Fuck you, Azula,” he finally said aloud. _What happened to that tiny kid I was watching? What the fuck happened?_ Bitter memories swirled around his mind like the steam crawling along the floors and, for a moment, Zuko felt that peculiar sense of loss swell up in him once more. A moment later, it was interrupted.

“Excuse me, Prince Zuko?” a timid voice called. “I brought your garments, sir.”

Heaving a sigh, Zuko stood up and stepped out into the steamy room. _Hope you’re better now,_ he thought sarcastically in the general direction of his body. “I’ll be right out,” he said, iron in his voice.

\---

As Zuko approached the grand double doors of the throne room, his thoughts were fixated on the slightly squeaky rustling sound that he made with every step. The soft leather of his shoes and the lavish red carpets beneath his feet made a soothing mantra as the surfaces pressed into and swept across each other. Swish, squeeee. Swish, squeeee. There was reliability in that simple pattern that Zuko envied. Swish, squeeee. No lying Azula come to turn his life upside down with every second sentence. Swish, squeeee. No night terrors to fuck up his body and his mind. Swish, squeeee. No false reputation to uphold. Swish, _clack_.

Zuko blinked out of his trance, reeling from his proximity to that anxious revelation. He was standing before the doors, and the only thing left to do was go through them. Zuko took a deep breath.

“Ah, Zuzu, there you are.”

 _Ugh._ The breath whooshed out as Zuko turned back to look at his sister. Azula was leaning casually – _too_ casually – against one of the vast columns beside the doorway. Zuko felt his shoulders begin to clench and swallowed his rush of irritation with difficulty.

“I decided I ought to wait for you before I entered,” Azula said, examining her nails. “It might offer you a bit of protection to be late with me.”

Zuko frowned. “Why would you do that?” he asked. “You’ve never been late to anything this… well, to anything, before.”

“Oh, since the staff so thoroughly wronged you this morning… I thought I’d be nice so nobody gets hurt.” Azula’s coy smile was so carefully constructed, it could have been painted by an artist.

“Cut the crap, Azula,” Zuko quipped in spite of himself, already irritated by his lapse in demeanor. “What’s the real reason you’re here?”

Zuko had given her enough rope to hang him with, and Azula martyred herself masterfully.

“I was just trying to be nice! Don’t be so ungrateful, Zuzu. But fine, if you _really_ must know, I’ll spoil the surprise.” Azula crossed her arms petulantly, looking like the perfect mimicry of scorned virtue. “I _happened_ to overhear that Father’s going to award you a special title, you see, in honor of your brave defeat of the Avatar in Ba Sing Se. He’s going to announce it before the council today. There will even be a public ceremony!” The delight in her voice sounded exceptionally genuine. It made Zuko feel even more dread than before.

“That’s… great,” he said through clenched teeth. Zuko stuffed his fists into his pockets to disguise how much they were shaking. Dissociation struck him like a forge hammer and the edges of his vision went grey.

“Yes, isn’t it wonderful?” Azula’s eyes danced as she pushed herself off from the column and swung an arm across Zuko’s shoulders. Zuko winced. “Everyone across the Fire Nation will know about it, and everyone who’s _anyone_ will be there to watch it personally. I’m sure they’ll want to hear all of the thrilling details firsthand.”

“…Great.”

Azula sighed longingly and squeezed his shoulder. “It’s such a privilege, Zuko. Let’s not wait a moment longer, I’m sure Father is bursting with excitement to tell you himself.” It took all of Zuko’s waning self-control not to snort aloud as Azula reached her free hand out to the tall door. She paused. “Oh, and do pretend I didn’t tell you first. I would _hate_ to take that opportunity away from Father.”

Azula’s smile burned into his eyes as she pushed the door open into the fiery chamber. “After you, Zuzu.”

 _Fuck._ Zuko stepped inside.


End file.
